BMK BMK The Bitmap Kid Presents... ----------------------------- An Ultimate Guide to CIVILISATION ------------------------------------- Chapter Four - Foundations, War, and More Advancements 1 - Pillar of a great nation. The strength of your entire civilisation depends on your capital and the land around it. This may sound obvious - I went into before that you must find a good spot for your city With any luck, by now you should have cultivated at least one good Civilisation to around 1 AD. By about the death of Christ, you should have finalised the foundations for your world conquering, space exploring and, most importantly, score building Civilisation. You should have established your 'base' cities, these can number from just one to about three or four - you don't really want more than this - it will just clog up your play and also the computer and just are not needed at this point - I have certainly found that starting off small and then undertaking a global takeover is best. These 'base' cities should consist, of course, of your capital, and a few others (if you want) for the only reason that you can build several units at once. These cities should all be near each other (see the section on building new cities in an earlier guide) and, of course, linked with roads. When they are all founded and thriving on the surrounding land you have prepared for them, you can finally start taking a closer look at the other Civilisations around you. 2 - Diplomacy and WAR! Basically nation meets nation, if nation likes nation they shake hands and trade, if nation does not like nation you shake hands with a dagger in the other hand and then get 'em! Well, kinda. As I said before, don't be too worried about breaking treaties - by doing this you have the chance at sneak attacks which are very handy indeed. The only problem you may have is with some of the more advanced governments like the Democracy - the senate can (and will) cancel any orders against a "friendly" civilisation - even if they declare war on you! (Until, that is, their first attack.) As for the civilisations you should remain friendly with and who you should stab in the back, simply wipe out the ones who give you trouble, have wonders you want, or just have cities (and perhaps, units) in damn annoying places. For the latter, you can either pay off units to join you (as described later) or kill 'em and try and get in that civilisation's good books. Make peace with any others for as long as you want to (or can) and do some major trading if you wanna. You may, even, with a friendly civilisation, like to prepare land around their cities, a sort of "fatten them up for the kill" idea. Aren't I crafty? Narrr, just plain evil.... 3 - The Attack! Taking over other civilisation is EASY - once you have your base cities well-established. Just, when the time is right, produce as many of your strongest attacking units as you can, put several of them on one square next to a city (or unit), ideally the capital (so the palace is taken) and attack and attack. Once taken, sort out a priority improvement or unit to build/buy (this depends in the size, position and improvements already there.) Making sure the new city is suitably protected, move on to the next enemy city. You should have NO problems taking the strongest of cities, and within a few real-time minutes you can wipe the biggest of smug grins off the face of the planet. Whoopie-do. Paying off units is nice, I love it. Earlier in the game it is a bad idea, it costs too much and so it is best when you are very rich (I'm talking tens of thousands), (under a democracy) and when used on barbarians. Within seconds a load of enemies can become yours relatively cheaply. This is, of course, done by a diplomat as mentioned before. 4 - More advancements. The big one, after your basics, is to get a Democracy. (Alphabet, writing, code of laws, literacy, ceremonial burial, mysticism, philosophy, democracy.) It has massive advantages, tiny disadvantages (if you manage your civilisation well) and is generally the best in the game. That's all for yet another issue, (phew!) - look out for the penultimate edition of this great Civilisation guide next issue, I'll see 'ya then. BMK BMK - o -